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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23275087">Strange Things Did Happen Here</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/'>Anonymous</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, The Hunger Games (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, F/M, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, Hurt/Comfort, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I should be revising something else but here we are, No Mockingjay here, Pining, Rey Needs A Hug, Rivals to Lovers, no palpatine</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 08:48:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,361</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23275087</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Capitol’s symbol blazes brightly, numbers ticking away the minutes till the announcement. </p><p>The Hunger Games announcement. </p><p>Rey hadn’t planned to pay attention. She’d planned on leaving her screen on then going to stand in the kitchen and count the tiles, or perhaps make some bread if she felt unusually motivated, and let the chipper voices of the announcers drone on without her.</p><p>And then Ben Solo had arrived.</p><p>•     •     •</p><p>The life of a Victor isn't easy. After winning the 97th Hunger Games, Rey's day is made of lone walks on the streets of District 8 and occasional visits with Luke Skywalker, her fellow Victor and once-Mentor. Her nights are built on the nightmares her Games left for her, and the eerie echo of President Snoke's cruel musings at the end of her Victor's tour: once a Victor, always a Victor. </p><p>Always under the Capitol's eye.</p><p>The reminder comes sharp as ever the day President Snoke announces that the tributes for the fourth Quarter Quell will be named from the existing Victors.</p><p>Rey is headed back into the Games.</p><p>And this time, her elusive fellow Victor and Capitol favorite Ben Solo is going with her.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rey &amp; Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Anonymous</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Announcement</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi.</p><p>I hopped out of the fan fiction world a few years ago, but I suppose a few weeks of social distancing from an actual /pandemic/ pushes anyone back to the edge. So here I am, humbly offering you the strange little plot thread that's been hovering in my brain for the past few weeks.</p><p>This story is un-beta'd and barely(if at all) edited. I've never used ao3 to publish before, so I'm not quite sure how well or how long this will go. I suppose time will tell.</p><p>All in all, this is really just for fun. </p><p>&lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Victor’s Village is barren in the middle of spring, a dry wind sweeping through the windows of the house Rey has all to herself. It flutters the white curtains that came with the property when she first moved in three years prior, the furniture’s dust swirling through the cold air before settling somewhere new.</p><p>She picks off a piece of lint that lands on the knee of her pants before turning her attention back to the glowing screen in front of her. Years ago she would’ve stood in the square with the others, or been expected to watch from whatever machine she’d been stationed at, a large, singular screen placed above their heads to accommodate the mandatory viewing without interrupting the work flow.</p><p>But Rey isn't fond of crowds, and she doesn’t have to work. She’d tried, when she’d first gotten back home. When she’d made the mistake of craving normalcy, her old routine. But the Peacekeepers escorted her out every time, and eventually Luke had told her to knock it off before they started taking it out on the workers she’d offered help to instead.</p><p>She wonders if Luke is watching too, hidden away in his house just across the street. He must be. The lights are always off but the door is usually cracked open between his afternoon strolls. He stops to check in on her, sometimes. She wonders if he’ll come by after today’s announcement, to begin planning for how the two of them will mentor the next pair of helpless teenagers walking into hell.</p><p>The Capitol’s symbol blazes brightly, numbers ticking away the minutes till the announcement. The <em>Hunger</em> <em>Games</em> announcement.</p><p>She hadn’t planned to pay attention to the Games. As a Victor, that at least felt like a well-earned right: it wasn't as if it'd be her name pulled from that shiny glass bowl. She’d planned on leaving her screen on then going to stand in the kitchen and count the tiles, perhaps make some bread if she felt unusually motivated, and let the chipper voices of the announcers drone on without her.</p><p>And then Ben Solo had arrived.</p><p>Rey hasn't seen him yet– has never seen her fellow Victor, not in person– but the whispers had rocketed through the market that morning, disbelief and anger, the wonder why someone would return to the Districts after so many years spent in the Capitol. Wondering what his mother must think of him returning, and if anyone had warned her yet. Like Leia Organa didn't watch the comings and goings of District 8 like a hawk.</p><p>Rey had allowed herself to glance over at his house– or what was <em>supposed</em> to be his, though it appeared as abandoned as any of the empty tombs waiting for more Victors to come along– only once, peeling back the curtains of her bedroom window and eyeing the single light turned on its mirrored room before stepping away.</p><p>She didn’t care if he was there. She just cares what it means for a Capitol darling to make his way to his forgotten home the day of the Games announcement.</p><p>She flinches out of her thoughts when the screen blares, trumpets lifting through her barely-used living room. Her knees are already pulled up to her chest and she locks her arms around them, her own grip tightening around her fist as a familiar face appears on her screen.</p><p>President Snoke.</p><p>He’s dressed impeccably behind the podium, pollen yellow coat pressed clean with the Capitol’s logo pinned to his lapel. His gaunt face curls into a simpering smiling as the applause of unseen Capitol roars around him, but his cold eyes remained locked onto the camera as it pans closer.</p><p>“Our great country,” Snoke begins, his ice-cold rasp crawling over her skin even through the screen, “began the Hunger Games to celebrate the overcoming of an egregious rebellion. So many years ago it was written in the character of the Games that a Quarter Quell would be hosted every twenty-five years. So on this, the one-hundredth anniversary of the Hunger Games and the fourth Quarter Quell, will begin a celebration of the power of the Capitol and its strength over its people.”</p><p>Rey snorts.</p><p>“For the Quarter Quell, we host the Game as a reminder that even those given mercy can have it taken away. That safety of Panem is a gift extended by the Capitol's hand, and one that if turned away, will not be given out twice. So on this, the hundredth anniversary of our great triumph, the male and female tributes for the fourth Quarter Quell…” the hitch in Rey’s breath is instinctive with Snoke’s pause, and for a moment she’s certain he’s about to deal out an insult to her personally.</p><p>She’s not totally wrong.</p><p>“–shall be reaped from the existing pool of Victors of each district–”</p><p>She doesn’t hear the rest. She can see Snoke finishing his speech to the waving crowd, the camera panning over faces delighted by their horror, in the excitement to come. The <em>anticipation</em>.</p><p>Rey doesn’t cry. She hasn’t, not since the arena. She can’t.</p><p>She gets angry.</p><p>The pillow she lobs at the screen isn’t satisfying enough, so she picks up the lamp on her coffee table and throws that at the screen too. The glass shatters against the wall behind it and bounces back hard enough to cut into the exposed skin of her shin, and she doesn’t feel it, barely registers the blood as she throws on the dark green sweater over her tank top, shoves her feet into her dusty boots and marches out of the house without closing her front door behind her.</p><p>She crosses the clearing in seconds, flying through Luke’s open door and into the foyer only to find her old Mentor sitting on his couch in his living room, hand over his mouth and sad eyes on the screen even after the announcement has ended.</p><p>Rey’s breathing is ragged. “They can’t do this.”</p><p>Luke slowly lowers his hand, sighing without looking over at her. “They can.”</p><p>“They <em>can’t</em>.”</p><p>“Oh, they can.” The voice is low, matter-of-fact, and surprisingly pleasant: and still, Rey glares at the source as he turns the corner. “They already have.”</p><p>Ben Solo <em>is</em> as tall as the cameras made him appear, she thinks. He towers in the doorway from the kitchen, one hand grasping a beer bottle and the other two more. His hair is dark, shiny, and so are his clothes, the leather of his shoes as he crossed the living room and sets a bottle in front of his uncle before offering one to her.</p><p>“I don’t drink,” she says icily. She’s seen what it can do to normal people– much less Victors.</p><p>Ben’s brows raise, but he shrugs and sets the bottle down on the coffee table.</p><p>If Luke is surprised to see his estranged nephew in his house, he doesn’t show it.</p><p>“They can’t do this,” she says again, because part of her stubbornly hopes that saying it will speak it into existence, that the words will land in the far-away temple of some esteemed Capitol member who can pull the plug on the whole event. “I mean– we won. We <em>won</em>. We got out. That’s the deal.”</p><p>“The Capitol doesn’t make deals,” Ben says after a quick swig from the bottle, his nose scrunching at the flavor. Probably not the Capitol-sweet beverages he’s accustomed to.“So we’re stuck with this.”</p><p>Rey turns on him. “<em>We</em>?” she repeats, the word hot on her tongue. “There is no we, <em>snake</em>.”</p><p>It’s almost funny, how taken aback he looks by her venom. Acceptance settles over his face quickly, almost amusement quirking the corner of his lips as he looks down at her.</p><p>“Quite a strong opinion from someone who’s never met me.”</p><p>Her eyes narrow. “I know everything I need to about you.”</p><p>“You do?” His head tilts, just slightly. Considering her as he takes another sip from the bottle without breaking eye contact. When she doesn’t turn away he sighs, bottle lowering from his lips.“Ah, you do.”</p><p>“Enough, children.” Luke stands, ignoring the bottle Ben brought for him to drag a hand down his face. "Though I know it worked out well for you last time, Rey, pissing off your Mentor early on might not be the best path to success.”</p><p>Rey, after her reaping, had done her very best to use a chair to break through the train’s window. She’d almost succeeded too, up until Luke had caught her and demanded she stop being an idiot.</p><p>“I’m not the Mentor,” Ben says shortly. “I’m going back in.”</p><p>Luke snorts, waving a hand dismissively. “Don’t be so sure. I’ve pissed ol’Snoke off more times than my fair share– and <em>you’re</em> the Capitol’s favorite toy. You’ve probably got some deep pockets pulling the reins in your favor.”</p><p>Ben’s expression is unreadable “As I said earlier,” he says, so quietly, “The Capitol doesn’t make deals.” He glances at his uncle, lips thinning. “You wouldn't survive a second round, old man.” The words are too soft to be barbed, but there’s no kindness in them either. His eyes flit briefly to Rey. “And she needs someone she’ll actually listen to to tell her what to do.”</p><p>Luke allows his nephew a dry glance. “If you think Rey lets anyone tell her what to do, you’ve got another thing coming.”</p><p>“So this it?” Rey asks, not thrilled to have been cut out of the conversation. “We just– accept this?”</p><p>“Did you have a better idea?” Luke asks. “Cause I’m all ears.”</p><p>Part of her wants to blurt that they could run away, but the idea is gone as quickly as it comes. She has no doubt Snoke has Peacekeepers posted just outside the gates of the village, if not already outside their homes themselves.</p><p>Another part of her wants to run across town to Leia. But Leia, for all her defiance towards the Capitol and her kindness towards Rey, hadn’t been able to stop Rey from going into the Games the first time. Hadn’t been able to stop them from taking her son.</p><p>She glares at Ben.</p><p>“You are <em>not</em> my ally.”</p><p>“You don’t have a choice, sweetheart.” The Capitol’s darling Victor glares at her across the living room, and for a moment Rey remembers the stories of just how bloody Ben’s Games had been, just what he’d done to make it to the end. He glances down at her, eyes falling the length of her body before he notices the dark red smeared across her shin and his lips curl in distaste. "You're bleeding."</p><p>Her arms cross. "If we're going into the Game together, you'll have to get used to that." She remembers her own Games, and her relief that she’d never have to do it again.</p><p>They stare at each other silence, both unwilling to look away first. They're both Victors, both champions, have both fought to the bitter end for freedom.</p><p>But Rey, at least, kept some glimmer of her morality when she won hers.</p><p>“Well, then,” Luke says, finally cracking open the beer, eyeing the two of them with something too bitter to be amusement, “it looks like we have a team.”</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Reaping</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rey’s Games had been in a desert, sand stretching as far as the eye could see. She still has nightmares about wading through it, sometimes knee-deep, sometimes waist. Sometimes there was so much blood it turned to the consistency of mud, threatening to drag her under unless she kept moving against it.</p>
<p><br/>The days following the Quarter Quell announcement sort of feel like that.</p>
<p><br/>She remembers to make herself meals, usually. Sometimes it’s just bread, a little plain and a lot dry, but it soothes the grumbling in her stomach enough that she can sleep for a few hours before the nightmares take over.</p>
<p><br/>The morning of the Reaping Maz shows up at her front door.</p>
<p><br/>Or, more accurately, her hallway: Rey had left the door unlocked after her morning run and Maz has never had any qualms about walking into a place uninvited. She stops in the doorway when she catches Rey sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter, cheeks stuffed with the remnants of the loaf she’d made the day before. </p>
<p><br/>Maz is small and wiry, one of the older members of District 8: Rey wouldn’t consider them close, but Maz is sure as hell closer than anyone else.</p>
<p><br/>Maz’s lips thin at the sight of her. “Is this how you plan to present your District? Your people?”</p>
<p><br/>Rey’s hair is hanging limply down her shoulders, dark circles under her eyes. Her nails are worn down to stubs from biting them, fully on display as she tears another piece off the loaf and stuffs it into her mouth. “Present them as what?” She asks through her full mouth. “Overworked and underfed?” She looks over at Leia Maz raises an eyebrow. “Accurately?”</p>
<p><br/>“Proud and strong,” Maz says empathetically, then sends her upstairs to shower.</p>
<p><br/>When she’s done she sat cross-legged on her bed, sighing as it dipped behind her with Maz’s weight. The older women’s fingers were gentle as they worked through Rey’s hair. </p>
<p><br/>She waited for the familiar pull that would start the first of three buns– a style that’d become customary for her during her Games, and then mandatory afterwards– but instead Maz’s fingers draped part of her hair over her shoulder and began braiding the upper half, soft, gentle movements.</p>
<p><br/>“No, wait,” Rey murmured when Maz stopped, hands dropping into her lap when Rey turned to look at her. “This isn’t–”</p>
<p><br/>“You’re more than the Capitol’s iconography,” Maz tutted. “You’re not a symbol, you’re a person. You’re you. And you’ve grown since those hellish days in the dessert.” She dipped her chin, voice strong despite its gentle rasp. “Let them see that.”</p>
<p><br/>Rey’s fingers traced the soft path of hair down the back of her bed, loose strands falling over her shoulders and the upper half braided back. Something knotted in the back of her throat and she nodded, a brief smile flickering across her lips. “Thank you.”</p>
<p><br/>Maz reached over to take her hands, squeezing them warmly. “We’re behind you,” she promised. “Every step of the way.”</p>
<p>Rey tries to remember that when she’s walking alone up to the stage.</p>
<p><br/>She flinches when the bells chime, a speaker announcing the one-minute start time till the cameras are rolling. To the left of her the District is beginning to assume their places in the clearing, and ahead of her the metallic black dress of District 8 escort Bazine Netal glints in what little sunlight pierces through the overcast clouds above as she steps onto the stage.</p>
<p><br/>Bazine looks the same every year, black dress, dark hair slicked back in a ponytail the reaches the back of her knees, face whited out completely so the singular color on her lips– this year a vivid magenta– sticks out like a beacon on her sharp face. She stares out into the crowd passively as the rest of the stage takes their seats, as Peacekeepers bring out the sleek glass bowls out onto the waiting pedestals.</p>
<p><br/>They’re terribly empty this year, and the sight of a single slip of paper in one drops a weight into the pit of Rey's stomach. She fears, momentarily, that her breakfast of stale bread is about to come up, all over the clean beige jumpsuit Maz had helped her pick out.</p>
<p><br/>Then the music is playing, the screens above alive with the Capitol’s symbol and snapshots of her District’s faces, and it’s all Rey can focus on.</p>
<p><br/>They start by playing clips from the Games of past District 8 champions: Rey wonders how many Districts do the same, how many have enough Victors to be worthy of a compilation. Even District 8 only has a handful, and Rey grimaces as she watches Luke’s clips flash by.</p>
<p><br/>Rey hadn’t been alive when Luke’s Game had aired, but the story still permeated through District 8– and presumably the others– to that day, of his surprising confidence with a sword and the swiftness of which he took down the few opponents he’d actually fought. The entire time, he’d offered second chances: he’d only killed when pushed into a corner.</p>
<p><br/>She’d tried to follow the same strategy with varying degrees of success.</p>
<p><br/>But she’d <em>tried</em>.</p>
<p><br/>It was more than some could say.</p>
<p><br/>She pointedly doesn't watch as Ben is shuffled onto the other side of the stage, Luke’s stature remarkably eclipsed beside him. In the corner of her eye she can see Ben’s eyes on her. The two dark points on her skin just as invasive as the Capitol’s cameras.</p>
<p><br/>“Welcome, citizens of District 8.” Bazine is speaking, smoky voice cascading over a captured audience. Rey hadn’t even realized the clips were over, her own and Ben’s flitting by without her notice– not that she minded. She’d seen enough of Ben’s, and she’d certainly had enough of her own. </p>
<p><br/>Behind the microphone Bazine isn’t smiling. Not really. Her lips are upturned at the corners, but even standing a few feet away Rey can sense the dark glint of her eyes is anything but warm. “On Reaping Day, we gather to select our 24 tributes. Today, we celebrate the 100th anniversary and our 4th Quarter Quell of the Hunger Games, where our tributes will be selected from District 8’s preexisting Champions.” Her eyes dart to Rey, and even the turns of her lips flatten. “As per tradition: ladies first.” </p>
<p><br/>Rey tries to seek out some sense of familiarity in the crowd as Bazine approaches the bowl, the clicks of her high heels echoing over the hastily built stage. But she knows none of the younglings gathered near the front, and Maz is too short and too far in the back to be seen.</p>
<p><br/>“Rey Niima!”</p>
<p><br/>Rey doesn’t smile at the sound of her name. She’d earned her right to be fierce, feral and proud– she keeps her chin high as she walked to her mark on the stage even if it feels awkward and forced under the lights and cameras. She stares calmly out into the crowd during the dim sound of their forced applause, their silence as Ben’s name is called.</p>
<p><br/>As expected, Luke doesn’t volunteer for him. </p>
<p>He doesn’t look at her as he steps up beside her, towering over her frame. They stand there, side-by-side as the last trumpets blare and the cameras on them are cut.</p>
<p><br/>That they’re ushered into rooms after the Reaping is more than finality than anything: Snoke knows damn well Rey has no family to bid goodbye, and Maz doesn’t like being any closer to anything Capitol more than she has to absolutely be.</p>
<p><br/>And still, Rey is surprise when Leia walks through the door.</p>
<p><br/>Rey straightens where she’d collapsed into one of the wooden chairs: they’d been bolted into the floor. She’d checked.</p>
<p><br/>“You look sick,” Leia says by way of greeting, her usual wry smile in place. Her dark hair loops around her head in a braid, the dark grey of jumpsuit complimentary to her skin: her dark eyes still sparkle with age.</p>
<p><br/>“You’re not with your son?”</p>
<p><br/>The smile drops, Leia’s lips pressing briefly together. “He doesn’t care to see me,” she said.</p>
<p><br/>“His loss,” Rey offers with a noncommittal shrug: she’s been sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest but stands at Leia comes closer. “But that’s not why you’re here.”</p>
<p><br/>“Just wanted to check on,” Leia says, but Rey knows better, leaning down to hug the older woman so the cameras can’t hear Leia as she whispers, “Keep an eye out for Dameron. He can help you.”</p>
<p><br/>Leia and her contacts. Rey will never be sure how she came to have them, but she’s certain it has something to do with her arrival to 8 from District 1 years before Rey had arrived. </p>
<p><br/>Rey’s never heard the name but she nodded as she steps back, just as the door opens to a small battalion of Peacekeepers.</p>
<p><br/>Leia leaves.</p>
<p><br/>Ben, Luke and Rey are ushered onto the train.</p>
<p><br/>Rey doesn’t look back.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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